Hope
by SireesAnwar
Summary: Ronon thinks back on his time as a Runner. Sateda: a promise at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. Something to hope for on the brief occasions I could stop running long enough to think of something other than the Wraith.


**AN:** For the girls of RDFever.

Sateda: a promise at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. Something to hope for on the brief occasions I could stop running long enough to think of something other than the Wraith.

My paradise never realized. I lived there all of my life; always taking for granted it would be there. My world. My family. My life.

Gleaming cities. Technology. Hope of beating the Wraith. Hope we would survive because unlike so many cultures we'd managed to build, to stay, to keep the Wraith at bay.

There is an Earth saying, "Pride goeth before the fall." How truly spoken. We never believed we'd be destroyed. We never imagined the Wraith would attack without mercy. No, not mercy. We never thought they'd attack without the forethought to keep some of us alive to go on and be food for the future. And yet, they came, set on destroying all Satedan life.

I remember watching my fellow men disappear before my eyes. Those not picked up by Darts were killed by ground troops. Killed like an enemy not like food. And then I don't remember anything until I woke in the stasis chamber on the Hive ship.

I am a strong man. I know I can endure, but when I woke in that chamber I was terrified. I didn't show it because the Wraith wanted my fear. You see it isn't just about food. They enjoy watching us die.

To my surprise, and the Wraith's, I couldn't be feed on. This baffles even Beckett who has run numerous tests and hasn't managed to tell me why I could or wasn't feed on. Maybe it was my strong will to survive or maybe it is because I'm Satedan. Wouldn't that explain their attack? Or no, he did seem surprised.

Still, feeding clearly wasn't an option. I couldn't begin to imagine what would happen to me but in the end I was released on a planet. No explanation. I didn't understand at first. I went to a few worlds just hoping no Wraith would follow before I went back to Sateda. On the third world I figured it out.

I was sleeping when the first Wraith showed. Just resting a bit before I moved on, went home to where I was needed to help pick up the pieces after a culling. Those thoughts faded with the first Wraith.

He had tracked me. There was only one possible way for him to do that. There was a tracker on me.

I fought. I killed. I moved on, stopping only long enough to search my clothing, body, and worldly possessions. It was too long. Another Wraith. Another fight. Another world, and the realization if I couldn't find the tracker it wasn't on me, it was in me.

And with such a realization my beloved home which I'd taken for granted became a dream, a prayer, my hope. I survived, I fought all because one day I would go home and my life would be like it had been again.

The Wraith don't only take life, they steal hope.

My life changed for better and worse when I met John Sheppard and Teyla. They had weapons I'd only seen on Sateda and yet they weren't Satedan. Sheppard and Teyla both tried to convince the broken soul inside of me they could help. I would have never believed it except for Sheppard clearly wasn't familiar with the Wraith.

When I told them I was a Runner, Teyla was shocked but recognized my story as one of the horrors adults tell children to keep them in line. But Sheppard was shocked such a thing could even happen. He was new to the Wraith's way of thinking, and here is where my hope took root.

How can anyone be new to the Wraith? It didn't take me too long to find my answer. Dr. Beckett came to the planet and pulled the tracker out of my back. And in those few minutes my life as a Runner ended.

I hadn't trusted in a long time but with the removal of the tracer, hope laid down roots causing trust to grow with it. I was free. I could go home, but first I had to know about Sheppard's people.

They had told me about Atlantis. As a child, growing up, I'd heard stories about the City of the Ancestors. Never did I think I would see it with my own eyes. These people might not be the Ancestors of long ago but they are from them like Teyla and I.

As I sat "guarded" in the room they'd placed me in my mind thought back to every alone moment I'd had in the last seven years. Every thought had been about returning home, seeing my family, seeing my friends, and getting my life back. Those thoughts, dreams, seemed closer than ever before because of a city humans in two galaxies revered. Of course, this realization came later but it's true. If the "Ancients" hadn't made the impression they did on these humans of Earth, then I would still be a Runner.

I'm sure these revelations would have hit me before now but at the time I was simply intrigued they were from another galaxy, a galaxy without Wraith.

Hope is an eternal flame that keeps the mind, body and spirit moving. When I saw Sateda on the Atlantis screens my hope crumbled like the buildings of my world. I felt more lost in that moment than I had on any of the worlds I'd fled to in seven years. Before, the Wraith had only taken the way I lived. Now they'd taken everything but my life. I wanted death. The prospect of being the last Satedan was too much to process. Thankfully that horrifying idea was relatively short-lived.

I stayed on Atlantis and joined Sheppard's team. They search for technology while working towards ridding the Pegasus Galaxy of the Wraith. This was a fight I could be part of, that I welcomed.

Sometimes I have to remind myself I'm not a Runner anymore. I can't just blow whatever I want up or rush into a situation because it is what I want to do. I am back in the military. Not Satedan military but Earth's, or the United States' as Sheppard tells me. This doesn't matter to me. What matters is these people, without even realizing it, gave me hope again just by asking me to fight by their side.

Sometimes I think Sheppard knows this and I'm positive Teyla understands it. It makes me laugh when McKay is annoying Sheppard, even if I don't show it. Even at the most perilous times of our missions, I have hope and faith McKay or Sheppard will come up with something to save our collective asses.

Earth humans are resourceful. They've never lived through what the people of the Pegasus Galaxy have but they fight an they will win because they are the only hope the Pegasus Galaxy has left. This they know. This they accept. And this is why I go on because my hope is not home but the people I trust to keep me alive.


End file.
